The Outsiders

The DMA will host acclaimed author S. E. Hinton as part of its Arts & Letters Live series this Thursday, April 24. Hinton gave a fresh and multifaceted voice to the renegade, rebel, and rogue characters in her popular young-adult novels such as The Outsiders and Tex. Generations of readers have embraced her books for their themes of loyalty and perseverance in the face of classist and social injustice, and have projected them into Americana icon status.

Hinton’s best-selling and most well known novel is The Outsiders, about two rival gangs of upper-class and “greaser” teens in the 1960s, inspired by her own experiences growing up in Tulsa. The book was published when she was just 18 years old. Twenty-thousand copies of the book will be distributed throughout Dallas this month as part of “Big D Reads,” a community reading project. Michael Kostiuk’s Untitled from 1973 in the DMA’s collection reminded us of the backdrop for The Outsiders.